This site uses cookies to improve your experience and to provide services and advertising.
By continuing to browse, you agree to the use of cookies described in our Cookies Policy.
You may change your settings at any time but this may impact on the functionality of the site.
To learn more see our Cookies Policy.

OK

#Open journalismNo news is bad news

Your contributions will help us continue to deliver the stories that are important to you

Chemical inspectors await all-clear to begin work in Douma

The suspected gas attack reportedly left more than 40 people dead.

Rubble fills a street in Douma, the site of a suspected chemical weapons attack, near Damascus, Syria.

Image: AP/PA Images

Rubble fills a street in Douma, the site of a suspected chemical weapons attack, near Damascus, Syria.

Image: AP/PA Images

INTERNATIONAL INVESTIGATORS WERE early this morning awaiting the green light from a UN security team to begin work in a Syrian town hit by an alleged chemical attack, after delays and warnings by Western powers that crucial evidence had likely been removed.t

The suspected 7 April gas attack on Douma, near Damascus, reportedly left more than 40 people dead and was blamed by Western powers on the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

In response, the US, France and Britain conducted missile strikes on Syrian military installations, but Paris admitted yesterday they were a matter of “honour” that had solved nothing.

Syrian Ambassador Bashar Jaafari told a meeting of the UN Security Council in New York that the team of experts would begin work on Wednesday once they receive the all-clear from the security detail.

If this United Nations security team decides that the situation is sound in Douma then the fact-finding mission will begin its work in Douma tomorrow,” Jaafari told the council in New York.

The Syrian state news agency SANA earlier reported that the international experts from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had entered Douma to begin their investigation of whether chemical agents were used as a weapon.

Syrians walk through the destruction in the town of Douma.
Source: Hassan Ammar

Jaafari stressed that the “Syrian government did all that it can do to facilitate the work of this mission” but that it was up to the United Nations and the OPCW to decide whether to deploy, based on security considerations.

Lost evidence?

The inspectors arrived in Damascus on the day of the Western strikes but had not been allowed to enter Douma.

France and the US appeared to question the purpose of such a mission.

“It is highly likely that evidence and essential elements disappear from the site, which is completely controlled by the Russian and Syrian armies,” the French foreign ministry said.

After Saturday’s strikes, which destroyed mostly empty buildings, the trio of Western powers trying to reassert influence on the seven-year-old war have appeared to favour diplomatic action.

The three allies have put forward a Security Council draft resolution in a bid to relaunch talks aimed at ending a war that has left more than 350,000 people dead and displaced more than half of the Syrian population.

Analysts have said however that it would take more for the West to mount a meaningful challenge to Russia’s weight as a broker.

“For a new diplomatic initiative to work, the balance on the ground must be changed,” said Nabeel Khoury, a former US diplomat who is now a fellow at the Atlantic Council think-tank.

“As it is, even with this latest bombing, the West does not have a seat at the table,” he said.

Russia appeared in no mood to extend a hand to the West on Syria however and its ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, called the diplomatic push “untimely”.

“If the goal is to force a Syrian president, under a hail of bombs, to sit at the table of negotiations… this goal is simply unrealistic,” Nebenzia told the Security Council.

The latest round of diplomatic maneuvring comes as US-backed Kurdish forces fighting the Islamic State group face a Turkish assault in northern Syria.

That has prompted many fighters to quit the battle against IS in order head for the Kurdish enclave of Afrin.

The US military, which heads a coalition against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, said yesterday it had seen the jihadists “resurge” in some parts of Syria under government control.

TheJournal.ie supports the work of the Press Council of Ireland and the Office of the Press Ombudsman, and our staff operate within the Code of Practice. You can obtain a copy of the Code, or contact the Council, at www.presscouncil.ie, PH: (01) 6489130, Lo-Call 1890 208 080 or email: info@presscouncil.ie

Please note that TheJournal.ie uses cookies to improve your experience and to provide services and advertising. For more information on cookies please refer to our cookies policy.

Journal Media does not control and is not responsible for user created content, posts, comments, submissions or preferences. Users are reminded that they are fully responsible for their own created content and their own posts, comments and submissions and fully and effectively warrant and indemnify Journal Media in relation to such content and their ability to make such content, posts, comments and submissions available. Journal Media does not control and is not responsible for the content of external websites.